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Pope Francis’ Death Marks Historic Farewell in Rome
news.movim.eu / TheNewYorkTimes • 25 April
As a reporter, I often observe from a press box or the sidelines. This time, I decided to join the masses.
‘You can let go now’: inside the hospital where staff treat fear of death as well as physical pain
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 22 April
In a Danish palliative care unit, the alternative to assisted dying is not striving to cure, offering relief and comfort to patients and their families
• This article is nominated for the 2025 edition of the European Press Prize in the Distinguished Reporting category. Originally published in Danish by Politiken
René Damgaard, 67, lies in a hospital bed in the palliative care unit at Hvidovre hospital outside Copenhagen. It’s the first evening of May, and the window is open, letting mild air and the sound of a blackbird singing into the room.
“This is the kind of weather you love the most. When you usually stand and fish at the sandbank,” says his niece, 53-year-old Mette Damgaard. She is leaning over the bed, her face very close to his. She has been sitting like this for a long time.
Continue reading...The Life, Old Age and Death of a Working-Class Woman review – a son confronts his mother’s decline
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 30 March
Didier Eribon’s guilt and shame fuels an angry and eloquent meditation on our attitudes towards the elderly and the end of life
“My mother,” writes Didier Eribon, “was unhappy her whole life.” Abandoned as a child, she started work at 14 as a house servant, later becoming a cleaning lady and then worked for decades making glassware at a factory in France’s Champagne region.
Married at 20, she shared a bed for 55 years with a violent, philandering and controlling man she did not love, ultimately bearing intimate witness to his Alzheimer’s disease and death. A decade later, in her mid-80s, her sons put this cognitively and physically enfeebled woman into a state-run nursing home, whose French name – établissement d’hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes – makes it sound nicer than it was.
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Can a Chatbot Help You Get Over Your Grief?
news.movim.eu / TheNewYorkTimes • 30 March
Death by euthanasia in the Netherlands increased 10% in 2024, figures show
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 24 March
Watchdog urges ‘great caution’ with psychiatric illnesses after deaths in such cases rise to 219 from two in 2010
The number of people in the Netherlands who died by euthanasia increased by 10% last year, figures have shown, as the official watchdog warned doctors to exercise “great caution” in cases where person has a psychiatric illness.
The Netherlands, which has one of the world’s oldest and broadest euthanasia laws, allows doctors to end a person’s life if they are “suffering unbearably, with no prospect of improvement”. They must be diagnosed with a medical condition, but this can include a mental illness or dementia.
In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the UK and Ireland, you can call Samaritans on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org . In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
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His Death Was Interrupted, Just as He Had Planned
news.movim.eu / TheNewYorkTimes • 16 March
Brendan Costello’s family was bracing for goodbyes. But he had one last wish.
‘It can be really frightening’: knowing the common signs that a loved one is dying can help in their final days
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 15 February
Death is confronting, heartbreaking and unpredictable – information and open discussions can make a difficult experience more meaningful
My mum died on a summer’s morning.
When I walked out of the hospital, where I had spent the last several days and nights curled on a small couch next to her bed, I felt like a stray root of some ancient tree that had accidentally broken out of the earth and into foreign air – wholly unprepared for the strange world I now found myself in.
Continue reading...Is the assisted dying bill doomed? – Politics Weekly UK
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 13 February
The spotlight was back on the assisted dying bill this week after it was revealed that the requirement for a high court judge to decide on cases was to be scrapped. Those in favour of assisted dying say the change will make it safer, but does it undermine trust in the bill? Gaby Hinsliff , in for John Harris, talks to our deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot , about the changes, and asks Kit Malthouse and Jess Asato – MPs on different sides of the debate – what happens next
Is assisted suicide a ‘clear and present danger’ to people with disabilities? A new film asks tough questions
news.movim.eu / TheGuardian • 27 January
Reid Davenport, whose documentary Life After is at Sundance, thinks euthanasia has ‘a lot to do with cost savings’
In 1983, Elizabeth Bouvia, a 26-year-old woman in California with a non-terminal but debilitating illness, tried to starve herself to death in a hospital. “I’ve made a confident, rational decision,” she said.
Doctors began force-feeding her, which she resisted. The ensuing legal case turned her into a focus of intense public attention. A headline declared: “Elizabeth Bouvia is young, pretty, smart – and ready to die.”
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